


Gentle, Now (If Only To Ease The Sound)

by orphan_account



Series: About The Sink [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 04:24:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12498700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: If it's a pattern of behavior is it really accidental?(Or, five times Team Cap break something after returning, and one time one of them tries to fix something.)





	Gentle, Now (If Only To Ease The Sound)

_(1-)_

The first thing they break is the roof.

Scott pilots the quinjet on the way home simply because they would rather have him learn this way than mid-battle. He is an Avenger now.

Steve guides Scott with quiet commands throughout, but his own hands remember the feel of the controls so well that he almost considers just taking over himself.

The last time he was in the Captain’s seat of a Quinjet, Bucky was strapped in behind them saying he was not worth the trouble and Tony lay crumbled in a frozen wasteland with Cap’s shield abandoned with him. Steve will get back to steering when he has too, but for now the knowledge that some things remain best untouched holds him in place.

They coast through clear conditions the whole way, and hit little turbulence. There is steady chatter in the jet’s cabin, despite the length of the trip from Wakanda to New York. They don’t switch to auto-pilot at any point simply because Scott needs all the training he can get.

He does take well to it, Scott. His background in electrical engineering provides some fodder for him, as far as machinery goes. He’s just too excitable.

He’s like a kid in a candy factory, running his hands over all the buttons. Steve allows him to go into a few dives, but has to correct their path more often than not.

When they finally reach home, it is night, and the landing pad is lit so the lights glare up at them. Nobody thought to call ahead so a spotter could direct them down gently, but they’ve never needed one before so they think that they can make do without one.

But Scott isn’t careful enough coming down. He doesn’t slow down in time so they continue to roll even after the wheels have hit the roof hard enough to shake them. They don’t come to a full stop until they hit the ridges of the roof, and when they step off board they see that they actually destroyed the edge that they hit. It’s too dark to see where the cement fell too, but they can make out what the missing chunk of wall was supposed to be.

Scott sheepishly tries to apologize when they come inside, but Steve just waves him off. Accidents happen, and it’s a problem for the morning.

*  
_(2-)_

Clint and Sam break the living room television by trying to move it.

The television itself is a thing of beauty. Widescreen, curved, surround sound, and voice activated- it’s a thing for kings.

The goal was to move the television a couple inches higher on the wall, so that it could be seen better if one were in the kitchen, and had to view it over the counter.

To move it, they have to take it off the hinges in the wall that are hanging it up, move the hinges up, and then rehang the tv on them.

Part of it was the two of them going stir-crazy when there’s not a mission. Clint and Laura are on the rocks, and for Sam any downtime is a reminder of Rhodes and Riley. A distraction is welcomed wholeheartedly by both of them, who can only run up so much time by training.

They could’ve asked Bucky or Steve to help, seeing as they both have super strength, or even Vision. Somehow, though,asking for help seemed like an admittance of weakness, especially when the others were so caught up in their own turmoil.

Sam’s not proud of it, but he uses Redwing to hover above and hold the television while Clint focuses on undoing the hooks.

Sam’s arms are getting tired, and he tells Clint as much. A few minutes pass and Clint gives him the thumbs up to reset the television, but it appears the hooks weren’t secure enough because the tv slides and crashes to the ground. The walls in the compound are thick enough that nobody else can hear the glass screen breaking, but Clint and Sam both look at each other with abject horror and then to the shards on the ground with a sad type of longing.

*  
_(3-)_

Wanda short circuits the arc reactor that powers the compound in a flux of power not unlike lightning.

At night, she has a dream about the Raft, and her powers flare around her protectively. In her mind she sees the collar again, feels her arms trapped in the straightjacket. Every half cocked fantasy of escape comes back to her just as it had in her time working for Hydra.

She wakes up gasping for air, and reaches for Vision beside her before remembering that he doesn’t need sleep and is likely not with her. She stumbles over herself for a second, but seeing the red in the air comforts her and she falls easily back into rest.

In the morning when she pads into the kitchen for coffee she is informed by Scott, with his hand half in a box of cereal, not to bother because the power is out. Natasha rolls her eyes and slides a pack of instant her way across the counter.

They don’t say it, but there’s something unsettling about Tony Stark’s tech going out on them. The arc reactor in the compound is one of the only models used on such a large scale, and it is both powerful and self sustaining. Wanda suspects that it may have been her own doing last night but keeps her mouth shut and squashes down the old vengeance burning in her gut.

When Steve returns from his morning run he informs the Accords council that their power has gone down, and they in turn reach out to Stark Industries. They’re all on edge, expecting Tony to drop by and fix the reactor, but instead a young engineer being paid by the council arrives and they are informed by him that Stark Industries left very clear instructions after they waved their consultation fee.

When he leaves, it becomes very clear that the fee was only waved at the cost of an NDA and so that the technology could be removed as opposed to repaired. The compound runs on a standard power grid now, and it goes down often.

*  
_(4-)_

Natasha tries to override the security code in the entrance pad multiple times before the system shuts down all together.

As a safety measure, the codes for every entrance change frequently. Once every three days new codes are assigned, and every member of the team is expected to memorize them, or be locked out. It was a standard practice at S.H.I.E.L.D., and it makes sense that it’s been carried over- but it feels a little overzealous in such an informal setting.

Normally, this would be no problem for her, but she’d been out earlier celebrating a win with the team, and the current codes seemed fuzzy in her memory. She’d just knock for somebody to let her in, but they’re all still down in the city. She’d only left early because she’s meeting with Coulson and Fury in the morning, to discuss the possible rebuilding of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The sports bar they were at had been picked by Sam, at the recommendation at one of his old VA buddies. It was a nice little hole in the wall, just off Broadway. Nobody there recognized them, and if they did they kept it quiet. They were having a good time, before she left. Most of them were too far gone for her to call them for the codes. She tried Steve, but her best guess is that he’s too busy wrangling everybody else in to pick up.

She wasn’t worried. Her hacking skills are the stuff of legends, but maybe she’s just off her game tonight. Every time she tries to slide under the programming, it’s like the system knows what she is doing because without fail she is thrown out again and each time it takes her longer to get past the first block.

By the fifth attempt, she is shut out completely, and an alarm starts blaring from the pad. At this point she accepts her fate, and slides down on the wall.

The police arrive minutes later, and they recognize her enough to let her explain the situation- But the blaring noise doesn’t stop long enough for her to be articulate. She has to walk further away with them and as she walks they explain that this particular home security model corresponds with emergency technicians, and is supposed to power down when they arrive. It’s a long time before it finally stops, and when it does, it doesn’t come back on again.

*  
_(5-)_

Their number one expense, surprisingly, is phones.

It stands to reason that they would go through a lot of them. If they’re carrying their cell-phones on a mission then they can kiss them goodbye. They get hit too hard, and too often, for such a small thing to survive their fights. However, there’s a question of why they so often carry them into the field anyways.

Steve, Bucky, and Sam at least care little for the tech, and often forget they have it on them. They only discover that their phones are broken when removing their suits only to see the bits fall out of some hidden pocket. The others, particularly Natasha and Scott, cling to their phones like safety blankets and take them protectively wherever they go. But the sheer amount of phones they go through regularly is astronomical.

The final straw comes, unfortunately, with Bucky.

With his arm replaced, Bucky struggles to reconcile his strength with the force he is used to putting into normal actions. He doesn’t mean to, but if he’s not careful with his metal arm, it crushes most of what it touches. He tries to avoid using it, if possible. Sometimes, though, when he can feel the phantom pain where his nerves should be he almost forgets that the arm is stronger than his other one- which itself is already enhanced.

It’s such an automatic action, to reach for his phone when it rings that he doesn’t stop to consider which arm he’s using to do it, until he hits accept call and cracks the touchscreen.

Steve tells him later that it’s not his fault, but he receives a few glares when the news hits that they have to switch from StarkPhones to HammerPhones to curb costs. He can’t see how this is supposed to help when HammerPhones break twice as easy anyways.

*  
_(1+)_

The distance between them and Tony is a loss masquerading so well as a win that they’d even fooled themselves.

Things are easier, certainly, without Tony around to challenge them- but the path of least resistance has always been a false promise and lately they feel that instead of moving forward they are just going through the motions.

Even now, when Tony is standing right across from Steve, the gaps he’s meant to fill are bubbling over. Before, the comments made by Tony would’ve grated against Steve. In this bitter silence, he almost yearns for Tony to call him an old man and smile in the way that crinkles around his eyes just so they can call it normal.

Steve keeps his back turned to Tony while he rinses out his mug in the kitchen sink. He is still angry with Tony, for Bucky and for Wanda, but the man is so quiet and so still that he is forced to remember that Tony is still angry with him, for Siberia, and for his parents. The Tony before him refuses to even be a shadow of the one Steve knows and the wrongness of it feels like blame.

They still compliment each other like a dream on the field, and the attack from Madame Hydra that they’re waiting on won’t stand a chance against them- but the inbetween time might just do them both in.

Even the coffee grounds in the sink look angry, and Steve offers them as a truce because he remembers once before when they upset the older man.

He says, “Sorry about the sink,” because they have to start somewhere.

He turns around just in time to catch Tony shrug.

“It’s your house,” He says, and Steve nods despite knowing the implications of that. Talking at all is progress enough.

**Author's Note:**

> #5 gets just slightly cracky simply because I can't be mean to Bucky.


End file.
